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Noboru Taki
is a new music teacher in Kitauji High School and serves as the adviser to the brass band club. He is in charge of Class 2-5 (Second years, class 5). Appearance Considered attractive because of his deep blue eyes, slim body, and unkempt dark hair, Taki is popular among the school's girls because of his good looks. He is quite tall, surpassing the height of Goto, the tallest student in the band club. In the fall and winter, Taki likes to wear cardigans over button-up shirts, sometimes with a long dark coat. In the summer, he wears short-sleeved button-ups under sleeveless sweaters and khaki pants. He also wears high-brow half-rimmed glasses. For some reason, Taki always keeps the top button on his shirts fastened. Personality In school, Taki is usually very polite and soft-spoken. Overall he is very friendly, rarely seen being angry or upset unless under heavy stress. However, the students quickly find that under his gentle semblance is a highly demanding and often bluntly critical teacher with a methodical personality. Although he is a very intuitive and talented teacher, Taki can sometimes be too harsh. Many upperclassmen, who were accustomed to the passive mindset of the band club of previous years, initially disliked Taki's methods. Despite this, Taki slowly earns his students' respect as everyone soon realizes that he is serious about going to the nationals. Outside of the classroom, Taki is a very different person. He exhibits bizarre, offbeat social behavior, can be easily distracted, and is a little clumsy when he gets overly excited about something. He also displays a consistent pattern of perpetual tardiness. Both at work and at home, Taki is wholeheartedly dedicated to music and music education; he is one of the first teachers at school in the morning, often stays late at night working in the faculty office, and listens to school band performances in his spare time either on his phone or laptop. Although Taki is now a polite and professional adult, it was revealed in the light novels that he used to be rather rude and cheeky in his twenties. However, after experiencing a personal tragedy, he went through severe depression and reemerged having lost much of his former childish personality. Relationships Michie Matsumoto Michie Matsumoto is Taki's colleague and vice adviser, and taught at Kitauji while Taki's father, Tohru Taki, advised the band before his son. She is Taki's friend and sometimes mentor. Michie and Taki often spend time together after school in the staff room, and they went to the Agata Festival together. Michie also sometimes gives Taki helpful but subtle advice. Reina Kousaka Taki and his family knew Reina and her father, a famous trumpet player, before Reina's enrollment at Kitauji. Taki's sister and Reina also knew each other a very long time, so Taki had known Reina since he was a teenager. It is mentioned in the novels that younger Taki used to cheer up Reina when she was a child by playing music with her. Later in the novels, Reina confesses to Taki that she loves him after the final concert when all the bands/mentors are being honored, but he takes that as a sign of respect and honor rather than a sign of romantic interest. Tohru Taki Taki had a strained relationship with his father, a famous band adviser who formerly taught at Kitauji. In fact, their relationship was so poor that Taki avoided the band club at the school he previously taught at because he associated band with his father. However, when Taki quit his job and almost entirely abandoned music due to personal tragedy, it was his father who talked him into returning to teaching music, and into advising band at Kitauji. Chronology Taki first appears in Episode One, listening to band music on his phone at a local shrine. In Episode Six, Taki introduces placement auditions for the first time in the club, which shocks and offends many members because the results will override seniority with musical proficiency. Although it forces everyone to practice harder, many students accuse Taki of bias, particularly concerning his affiliation with Reina Kousaka prior to teaching at Kitauji. At Michie Matsumoto's suggestion, Taki then holds a public re-audition, allowing the students to hear Reina's stellar playing and judge the results for themselves. In Episode Eight, Taki is enjoying himself at the Festival together with Michie, who is terrorizing her students with school dress code rules. In Episode Twelve, Taki mentions to Kumiko that he was yelled at by the vice principal for making the students practice too hard. He also gives her some vague personal reasons for why he chose to teach concert band. In Episode Thirteen, Taki is seen in the staff room before the final concert, speaking to a photo of his late wife. Gallery taki-sensei.jpg taki5.jpg hibike1.jpg taki.jpg noburo.jpg takimachi.jpg Trivia * Taki played the trombone throughout grade school and college. He majored in music education with a concentration in trombone performance. * Taki is a widower. His wife was also a music teacher who fell ill early in their marriage and passed away five years before the events of Hibike! Euphonium. After her death, Taki suffered from crippling depression for years, quitting his job and almost entirely abandoning music, before deciding to dedicate his life to fulfilling his wife's unachieved dream of taking Kitauji (her alma mater) to gold at nationals. * Taki gave his wife a white flower hairpin just before he proposed to her. The white flower hairpin becomes an occasionally appearing symbol throughout the light novels and the anime. * On the anniversary of his wife's death, Taki wears his wedding ring to class. * He can get way too excited about kichi''.'' * His name means "Rising Waterfall." * Oddly, Taki prefers to conduct with his hands instead of a baton, which is extremely unusual for any band or orchestra conductor. This eccentric refusal to use a baton may stem from his belief that the ensemble should be guided and not ruled-- founded on his philosophy of valuing student initiative-- or it may have deeper roots in personal issues with his father, who was a former band adviser at Kitauji. Some have speculated that it is due to his aichmophobia, a fear of needles and sharp objects. * Taki gets to school extremely early every morning, and leaves extremely late at night. He leaves his office only to sleep, buy pre-packaged food, or pray for his wife at a shrine. Navigation category:Teachers category:Characters category:Males